American Go E-Journal » 2013 » December

Mexican Kids Sharpen Tourney Skills

Monday December 30, 2013

“The kids at our school, Gimnasio de Go,  had a very busy December with three tournaments  at different places,” reports Mexico City organizer Siddhartha  Avila.  “On December 4th Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ran the El otro Tesuji  tournament organized by college and high school students. We sent four elementary school representatives, Paula Corona, Valeria Gonzalez, Mariana García and Omar Zavala-who got 3rd place, pictures here. On December 7th, our group played in the Biblioteca de México, Torneo de Go 2013, a children’s tournament organized by myself,  in collaboration with Biblioteca de México José Vasconcelos, a library where we are offering free go workshops on Saturdays. Winners report: 1st place: Fernanda; 2nd place: Diego Alí and Akira; 3rd place: Naohmi and Kairi. Pictures here.  Finally, on December 13th, we played in the Torneo de Go Invierno 2013, this was our winter elementary school go tournament, which was divided in two brackets.” Winners report: 20kyu-25kyu division: 1st place: Sebastián; 2nd place: Marcos; 3rd place: Diego Alí; 10kyu-19kyu division: 1st place: Omar; 2nd place: Diego Armando; 3rd place: Valeria, pictures here. -Paul Barchilon, E-J Youth Editor.  Photo by Siddhartha Avila: At Biblioteca de México José Vasconcelos

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British Open Taking Entries

Sunday December 29, 2013

Entries are now being accepted for the 2014 British Open, which will take place the weekend of March 1-2 2014 as part of the British Go Congress (BGC) 2014 in the south-coast resort town of Bognor Regis*. It is the central event of the BGC which opens on Friday February 28 with the British Lightning (also an open** event) and takes in the British Go Association (BGA) AGM on the Saturday evening (members only), wrapping up with a teaching session on Monday March 3. Click here to enter the British Open.

The BGC will run alongside the European Youth Go Championship (EYGC). This year the winner in the Under-20 category will gain a place in the new GLOBIS Cup World Youth Go Championship (see Nihon Ki-in Announces New Under-20 World Tourney, EJ 11/30), to be held in Japan on 8 – 11 May 2014. Please note that the EYGC venue providers, Butlins, withdrew the original date offered which we reported earlier (2014 European Youth Go Championship Venue Set, EJ 7/16).

Click here for full details of all these events.

Report by Tony Collman, British Correspondent for the E-J. Photo courtesy of BGA website.

*The title Regis (“of the King”) was granted to the town in 1929 by King George V after he spent time convalescing nearby the year before. The King’s famous last words, unprintable here, also concerned Bognor.

**Entrants should, however, be members of their national go association.

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Go Classified: Go/English Teachers Wanted in China

Sunday December 29, 2013

Go/English Teachers Wanted: large boarding school in China seeks teachers to teach go and basic English to children at the Century School in Shouguang, Shandong Province (about 4 hours by bus south of Beijing). Grades 3-6; 2 classes of 1.5 hours/week using simple English. Playing strength should be about 1 dan. 6 hours of teacher training will be provided via SKYPE and all teaching materials including lessons, problem sheets will be available on line. Schedule: Sept 1 2014 to June 30 2015; several holidays including 4 paid weeks at Spring Festival. Salary: About $1000 US/month including return airfare and travel cost from Beijing. Accommodation provided: Private staff room with kitchenette, TV, bathroom, water cooler, laptop and more. Meals – 3 meals/day for about $5.00/day or less at school dining hall. Minimum English teaching experience necessary, and knowing Chinese is not required, but you should like teaching. A knowledge of basic English grammar is useful. Email Chuck@kakari.com for more info.

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Categories: Go Classified
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Baduk Academy Hosts Winter Camp in Hawaii

Thursday December 26, 2013

The Winter BIBA (Blackie’s International Baduk Academy) Baduk Camp in Hawaii has a few slots open, reports Diana Koszegi 1P. Koszegi and Kim Seung-jun 9P are hosting the 6-day event February 7-12 on Kauai Island. The daily schedule includes golf and sightseeing during the days and go in the evenings. The $1,500 cost covers accommodation, meals, on-island transportation and the go study fee; participants must cover their own travel costs to Kauai. Email blackies.academy@gmail.com for details.

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Categories: U.S./North America
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AGA Website Updates Detailed

Thursday December 26, 2013

The AGA’s crackerjack web team has been as busy as elves with updates to the usgo.org website. Here are a few highlights to check out over the upcoming holidays. The new “Learn To Play” page is a great intro for absolute beginners. All the tournament pages have been updated, especially the calendar — which has a much cleaner, more accessible look – but also the pages for major tournaments and championships, tournament resources and tournament crosstabs, which includes crosstabs for major events from 2008-2013. The “Fun and Miscellaneous” page has some great new stuff, including links to History and Culture, Go Around The WorldLearn Overview, and Rules of Go. The ratings page now includes a tournament ratings status page. And following on the heels of the just-concluded SportAccord World Mind Games, there’s now a handy chart showing the International Go Federation’s global relationships and events. Greg Smith heads up the AGA’s website team, which includes Roger Schrag and Tom Hodges, with support by Karoline Burrall, Jason Preuss, Jonathan Bresler, Paul Barchilon, Roy Laird, Terry Benson and Thomas Hsiang. There are a few spots available on the team for qualified and committed volunteers: email journal@usgo.org for details.

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Upcoming European Tournaments: European Youth Go Championship, British Go Congress

Wednesday December 25, 2013

European Youth Go ChampionshipThe British Go Association will host the 2014 European Youth Go Championship in conjunction with the British Go Congress from February 28 through March 3 in Bognor Regis, a resort town on England’s south coast. The EYGC will be split into three age groups: under 12, under 16, and under 20. The British Go Congress will include a lightning tournament, the British Open, a teaching event, and pair go. British Go Association (BGA) members can enjoy discounts for all British Go Congress events. Discounted rates on accommodations are available for all players who make reservations through the official EYGC website. To register for either tournament or for more information including a full schedule, prizes, and the latest news, please visit the official European Youth Go Championship home page.
—Annalia Linnan; for complete listings, check out the European Tournament Calendar; photo courtesy of British Go Association

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EuroGoTV Update: Austria, Hungary, Serbia

Wednesday December 25, 2013

Austria: The Austrian Women’s Championship finished on December 21 in Go7 with Katrin Unger 5k in first, Lisa Mayer 6k (left) in second, and Chuandi Zhou 6k in third. Hungary: Pal Balogh 6d took the Hungarian Championship Final on December 15 in Budapest. Behind him were Dominik Boviz 4d and Peter Marko 4d. Serbia: Also on December 15, Nikola Mitic 5d bested Dusan Mitic 6d at the 39th Serbian Championship in Kragujevac while Dejan Krstic 4d placed third.
– Annalia Linnan,  based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV

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Edinburgh Wins British Online League, Glasgow Promoted

Monday December 23, 2013

The fifth season of the British Online League was won by Edinburgh’s first team for the second year running with fellow Scots, Glasgow, winning the second division, and earning promotion to the first next year. Their place in the second division will be taken by the demoted Central London Go Club’s B-team, where they will be joined by third division winners Milton Keynes, while Edinburgh’s second team move down into the third division.

The league was organised on behalf of the British Go Association (BGA) by John Collins, who also captained the St Albans Kyus, winners of the Wooden Spoon, and was played in the British Room on KGS. Registrations are now being taken for the sixth season, expected to start at the beginning of March 2014. Click here for full league standings.

Report by Tony Collman, British correspondent for the E-Journal. Photo: Martha McGill, Edinburgh first team captain, courtesy of BGA website.

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Categories: Europe,Go News
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Go Spotting: Upgo.info to Crowdsource Game Play Globally; Weichi in Age of Wushu; China Adopting Go to Foreign Policy Strategy?

Monday December 23, 2013

Upgo.info to Crowdsource Game Play Globally: “Upgo.info is angel funding meets go tournaments meets Mechanical Turk,” explains one upgo founder. “A start-up is only as strong as its best go player,” says another. Video explains how the site will “use the latest in big-data technology,” maximize the untapped strength of Japanese retirees and “crowdsource game play” globally.
Thanks to David Doshay for passing this along.

Weichi in Age of Wushu: Go plays a key role in Age of Wushu, a popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), reports Taylor Litteral.  “Age of Wushu takes place in ancient China during a time period where martial arts legends are born,” says Litteral. “Weiqi — or go — stakes its claim as being one of the four cultural life skills which is advanced by answering go problems, and Age of Wushu players can even play weiqi against each other.”  In the picture an npc (non-player character)  tells the player about weiqi.

China Adopting Go to Foreign Policy Strategy? “China is playing the classic game of weiqi, wherein it slowly expands influence through steps that are not a threshold to violence and do not trigger a forcible response,” says Douglas Paal, director of the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, in a recent Bloomberg news report about how “China Adopts Board-Game Strategy to Blunt U.S. Pivot to Asia.” The foreign policy strategy emerging from China’s new leadership “may include a series of incremental steps calibrated to blunt U.S. influence across Asia and sow doubt about America’s commitment to its allies in the region,” the report suggests.
Thanks to Chris Roose for passing this along. 

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Categories: Go Spotting
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ARGO: Go In Augmented Reality?

Sunday December 22, 2013

A team of researchers from UCLA and Osaka University are developing a way to learn go with “augmented reality” goggles. Players using an actual physical board will “see” highlights on certain intersections as the game proceeds in real time. Check out the Youtube video to see how it’s supposed to work. The authors – S. P. Chuang at UCLA and Kikoshi Kiyokawa and Taruo Takemura at Osaka University – believe many beginners get discouraged because it is hard to apply lessons from books on the real board in actual play. On the other hand, computer play lacks the aesthetics of placing real stones on a real board, which also deepens the learning process. ARGO aims to integrate the best aspects of “real” and “virtual” experience. The video illustrates four functions.  “Fuseki Tutor” uses Kombilo to search a database of 80,000 professional games, identify moves that pros have used, and “project” them onto the board, while “Joseki Tutor” uses Kogo’s Joseki Dictionary in a similar way. As play moves into the middle game phase, “Go Engine” mode allows the player to connect with an open-source program such as GNUGO or Fuego for next-move recommendations. ARGO can also attempt to count the game and provide estimates of the current “score.” The authors also claim that ARGO enables online play with a real board by transmitting the player’s next move to the server.

At first glance, ARGO appears to set forth on a potentially promising path. We’ve all encountered and experienced “bewildered beginner syndrome,” in which new players have no idea what to do next. A few recommendations can help to move the game along so that protracted helplessness does not become part of the experience. In years to come, players may look back on ARGO’s little green dots as we now recall Pong and the Commodore 64 — quaint relics of a primitive era. One can easily imagine color-coding good moves, best moves, pitfalls, trick moves and so on. Future players may “right-click” on recommended moves view possible outcomes while a narrator talks them through each variation. For now, ARGO is probably mostly of benefit to new players by providing them with specific options to think about. Cynics may say that ARGO also makes it easier for players to “cheat” with a program that is stronger than they are, especially online, but anyone with two computers can do that already.

Unfortunately, the 60 MB download does not seem to include easy instructions; and of course one would need a pair of AR goggles. Nothing has been posted or revised for several months and we were unable to reach the developers for comment, so it is hard to know whether this project will move forward or remain “vaporware” for now .Visit Chuang’s Github site for the latest information.
– Roy Laird

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